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1 A Comparison of Gaussian and Mean Curvature Estimation Methods on Triangular Meshes of Range Image Data Evgeni Magid, Octavian Soldea, and Ehud Rivlin Computer Science Faculty, The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel. Abstract Estimating intrinsic geometric properties of a surface from a polygonal mesh obtained from range data is an important stage of numerous algorithms in computer and robot vision, computer graphics, geometric modeling, and industrial and biomedical engineering. This work considers different computational schemes for local estimation of intrinsic curvature geometric properties. Four different algorithms and their modifications were tested on triangular meshes that represent tessellations of synthetic geometric models. The results were compared with the analytically computed values of the Gaussian and mean curvatures of the non uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) surfaces from which these meshes originated. The algorithms were also tested on range images of geometric objects. The results were compared with the analytic values of the Gaussian and mean curvatures of the scanned geometric objects. This work manifests the best algorithms suited for Gaussian and Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science

2 mean curvature estimation, and shows that different algorithms should be employed to compute the Gaussian and mean curvatures. Key words: Geometric modeling, principal curvatures, Gaussian curvature, mean curvature, polygonal mesh, triangular mesh, range data 1 Introduction A number of approaches have been proposed to represent a 3D object for the purposes of reconstruction, recognition, and identification. The approaches are generally classified into two groups: volumetric and boundary-based methods. A volumetric description utilizes global characteristics of a 3D object: principal axes, inertia matrix [25], tensor-based moment functions [13], differential characteristics of iso-level surfaces [35, 50], etc. Boundary-based methods describe an object based on distinct local properties of its boundary and their relationships. This method is well suited for recognition purposes because local properties are still available when only a partial view of an object is acquired. Differential invariant properties such as Gaussian and mean curvatures are one of the most essential features in boundary-based methods, extensively used for segmentation, recognition and registration algorithms [2, 57]. Unfortunately, these significant geometric quantities are defined only for twice differentiable (C 2 ) surfaces. In contrast, geometric data sets are frequently available as polygonal, piecewise linear approximations, typically as triangular meshes. Such data sets are common output of, for examples, 3D scanners. A plethora of work [1, 5, 11, 20, 24, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 42, 44, 49, 54] describing algorithms for curvature estimation from polygonal surfaces exists. Great effort 2

3 has been invested in designing methods of computing curvature that target real range image data [3, 52]. The existence of such a large number of curvature computation methods made it necessary to find some way of comparing them [15, 22, 27, 44, 46, 51]. Unfortunately, although error analysis methods for several different algorithms exist [33, 34], the known comparison results are insufficient and provide only a partial image. The reason for the absence of such work may lie in the large amount of factors that has to be analyzed when comparing curvature. A few examples of such factors are finding interesting, representative, and fair surfaces for computing curvatures, developing a reliable way of evaluating the accuracy of computations, and, nevertheless, the time and memory requirements of different methods. Starting in the 1980s, the curvature computation field made great strides. Probably the first comparison work was published in 1989, [15]. The authors conclusion was that the algorithms existing at that time were appropriate for computing the signs of the curvatures, while the values of the curvatures were extremely sensitive to quantization noise. In this context, the authors in [52] reached the same conclusion six years later, in Recently, methods providing the ability to compute curvature values are reported in literature. They can be grouped into several main approaches. A good and updated characterization of the existing literature can be found in [51]. Following [51], we describe the most common curvature computation methods. Methods Employing Local Analytic Surface Approximations Curvature computation essentially means evaluations of second order derivatives [7]. This process is known to be sensitive to quantization noise. Prob- 3

4 ably the most popular approach for trying to cope with this phenomenon computes an approximation of the vicinity of a node with an analytic surface. In general, quadratic or cubic surfaces are involved. To the best of our knowledge, the most popular approach is paraboloid fitting together with its variants [20, 27, 28, 42, 44]. A lot of effort has been invested in finding good local approximation surfaces. A comparison of local surface geometry estimation methods in terms of accuracy computation of curvatures can be found in [32]. Several extensions of the paraboloid fitting methods were also proposed in [14,17,29,40]. We mention that there are methods that employ local analytic surface approximations via computing nearly isometric parameterizations for each vertex [41] and via a spline surface fitting stage [36]. Methods Employing Discrete Approximation Formulas Discrete approximation formulas employ the 3D information existent in a node and its neighbors in a direct formula. In general, the formulas used are relatively short, a fact that provides some gain in computation time at the cost of the attainable accuracy. The authors in [24, 27, 33] considered such methods based on the Gauss-Bonnet [9, 45] theorem. We describe such a method, that is based on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, in detail in Section 3.2. In this context, the Gauss-Bonnet theorem can be used on simplex meshes [8], which are representations considered to be topologically dual to triangulations. Moreover, applications of angle excess in the context of minimal surfaces and straight geodesics can be found in [38, 39]. Methods Employing Euler and Meusnier Theorems 4

5 In numerous works, curvature computation is based on evaluating the curvature of curves that cross through a vertex and its neighbors. Each neighbor provides a directional curvature value. These values are further merged employing Euler and Meusnier theorems (see [9, 45]). In many other works, curvature computation is based on approximating tangent circles to surfaces. In this context, in [5, 31], circular cross sections, near the examined vertex, are fitted to the surface. Then, the principal curvatures are computed using Meusnier and Euler theorems (see [9, 45]). An interesting application of the Euler theorem toward curvature computation can be found in [54]. We describe this method in detail in Section 3.3. Methods Employing Tensor Evaluations The tensor curvature is a map that associates to each surface tangent direction (at a surface point) the corresponding directional curvature (see [49] for details). Probably the most popular method for curvature computations based on tensor curvature evaluation is [49]. Note that an extension of the Taubin scheme [49] appears in [19]. [19] employs extended regions on neighbors and uses a different weighting scheme. Methods Employing Voting Mechanisms Besides extended regions of neighbors, and closely related to, voting mechanisms are often employed towards algorithms accuracy improvement. The authors feel that most of the voting mechanisms existent in the literature, targeted the tensor computation accuracy improvement. In this context, Taubin approach [49] is at center stage and several very interesting improvements were reported as follows. 5

6 A method considered to be robust to noise when evaluating the signs of curvatures [51] can be found in [47]. Following [47] and [48], the authors in [37] proposed an improvement over Taubin s method [49] that, in addition, detects crease values over large meshes. Another improvement in the quality of curvature computation was recently reported in [51]. Methods Employing Multi-Scaling and Total and Global Techniques Relative recent works investigated the developing of local surface descriptors that employ smoothing and filtering at different scales toward reliable curvature computation. Probably the most representative method in the multiscaling methods category is [34]. The results achieved in [34] are dependent on a 2D Gaussian filtering iteratively applied on the input free-form. An estimation of the error is also provided [34]. Note that the advantage of multi-scale techniques is that they provide solutions for multi-target problems, such as interpolation, smoothing, and segmentation simultaneously [10]. The authors in [37] identified a category of curvature computation methods that provides the values of curvatures at each point at the end of the computations. In this approach, intermediate computation stages have to be finished over the entire input in order to be able to evaluate the curvature values at any point of interest. This approach is used in [56], where the authors proposed a method for computing the electrical charge distributions of a field targeting segmentation. The electrical charge distribution is, in fact, a differential characteristic that is proven to have similar properties to the curvature, especially for segmentation tasks. 6

7 1.1 Choosing Methods for Comparison Following [46], we attempt to quantitatively compare four methods for estimating the Gaussian and mean curvatures of triangular meshes. We tested these methods on triangular meshes that represent tessellations of four synthetically generated objects: a cylinder, a cone, a sphere, and a plane, as well as on non uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) surfaces. The results are compared to the analytic evaluation of these curvature properties on the surfaces. Moreover, we present the results of tests of the performance of the different methods on range images of geometric objects scanned using a 3D Cyberware scanner [23]. The results are compared to the analytic values of the Gaussian and mean curvatures of the scanned geometric objects. The analytic values of the Gaussian and mean curvatures were inferred from the dimensions of the real objects. The dimensions of the objects were measured using a micrometer. In our experiments, we employed four synthetically generated objects and their real objects counterparts, which have similar dimensions and tessellations. This fact represents a key factor in our comparisons. Our main goal is to obtain a high level of understanding of the main current approaches. In order to obtain such insight, we selected four specific methods, each one representative of a different approach. The chosen methods are: paraboloid fitting (Section 3.1), Gauss-Bonnet (Section 3.2), Watanabe and Belayev (Section 3.3), and Taubin (Section 3.4). 7

8 1.1.1 Methods Employing Local Analytic Surface Approximations: Paraboloid Fitting We feel that paraboloid fitting is an appropriate representative method, it being by far the most popular method of its class. In [27] and [44] the paraboloid fitting method is compared to other ones. The authors in [27] provide us a general overview of three algorithms on four types of primitive surfaces: spheres, planes, cylinders and trigonometric surfaces. No general surfaces are considered, however. In [44], five methods are compared on a cube, a sphere, a noisy sphere, and an approximated image of a ventricle Methods Employing Discrete Approximations Formulas: The Gauss- Bonnet Scheme In [24, 27, 33], an algorithm based on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem [9, 45] is described. We refer to it as the Gauss-Bonnet scheme. The Gauss-Bonnet scheme is also known as the angle deficit method [33]. The authors in [33] provide an error analysis for this method. The reasons for choosing the Gauss- Bonnet scheme is that it is extremely popular for computing the Gaussian curvature and both the Gaussian and mean curvatures involve a convenient, elegant, and fast evaluation of a formula based on turning the angles of its neighbors Methods Employing Euler and Meusnier Theorems: The Watanabe and Belyaev Approach Numerous methods of curvature computation employ Euler and Meusnier theorems [9, 45]. We have chosen the Watanabe and Belyaev scheme [54] as rep- 8

9 resentative of this group. The authors in [54] focused on mesh decimation, and provide a comparison of mesh decimation methods. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the accuracy of the curvature computation the authors proposed. The reason for choosing the Watanabe and Belyaev scheme is that, in our opinion, its performance primarily as regards curvature computation accuracy is unknown. Specifically, [31] concluded that the paraboloid fitting provides better results than a method that involves Euler and Meusnier theorems, called the circular cross sections method, on noisy data. We mention that the interest in analyzing the Watanabe and Belyaev scheme comes also from its behavior on noisy data captured in range images of real 3D objects as we show in Section Methods Employing Tensor Evaluations and Voting Mechanisms: The Taubin Approach Our belief is that the method that best fits the tensor evaluating methodology is Taubin s method. Moreover, the vast majority of algorithms that attempt improvements of curvature computation accuracy by voting target tensor evaluation and, therefore, the Taubin method. Another benefit of Taubin s method is that it provides very good results and was tested on real objects; see [21]. The paper is organized as follows: a short review of differential geometry of surfaces is provided in Section 2. In Section 3, a concise description of the four algorithms we considered is given. Then, results of our comparison are presented in Section 4. Finally, we conclude in Section 5. 9

11 Fig. 1. Curvature and normal curvature at a point on a curve on a surface. k is the curvature of C at v, n is the curvature of C at v, N is the normal to the surface S at v, k n is the normal curvature at v, and k n is a vector oriented in the direction of n with length 1 k. rection a normal curvature at each surface point S(r 0, t 0 ), the definitions of principal curvatures and directions are consistent. Theorem 2.2 Euler s theorem: The normal curvature κ n of surface S(r, t) in tangent direction T is equal to: κ n = κ 1 cos 2 θ + κ 2 sin 2 θ, (2.2) where θ is the angle between the first principal direction and T. 11

12 The Gaussian and mean curvatures, K(r, t) and H(r, t), are uniquely defined by the principal curvatures of the surface: K(r, t) = κ 1 (r, t) κ 2 (r, t); (2.3) H(r, t) = κ 1(r, t) + κ 2 (r, t). 2 (2.4) 3 Algorithms for Curvature Estimation In this work, we consider four methods for the estimation of the Gaussian and mean curvatures, for triangular meshes. We assume that each given triangular mesh approximates a smooth, at least twice differentiable, surface. 3.1 Paraboloid Fitting The paraboloid fitting method, as well as several variants of it, were described in [20,27,28,42,44]. In [20,27,28,42,44], the principal curvatures and principal directions of a triangulated surface are estimated at each vertex by a least squares fitting of an osculating paraboloid to the vertex and its neighbors. These references use linear approximation methods where the approximated surface is obtained by solving an over-determined system of linear equations. More recently, in [33], the authors provided an asymptotic analysis of the paraboloid fitting scheme adapted to an interpolation case. Interestingly enough, the paraboloid fitting method was considered a good estimator for differential parameter estimation in iterative processes. For example, in [42], the authors presented a nonlinear functional minimization algorithm that is implemented as an iterative constraint satisfaction procedure 12

13 N v e 5 v 4 v 5 v 4 e 4 v 5 v 3 v 0 e 0 v e 3 v 3 v 0 v 2 v 1 e 1 e 2 v 1 v 2 Fig. 2. Notation for vertices and edges. based on local surface smoothness properties. The paraboloid fitting algorithm approximates a small neighborhood of the mesh around a vertex v by an osculating paraboloid. The principal curvatures of the surface are considered to be identical to the principal curvatures of the paraboloid (see [20, 27, 28, 42, 44]). Vertex v i is considered an immediate neighbor of vertex v if edge e i = v v i belongs to the mesh. Denote the set of immediate neighboring vertices of v by {v i } n 1 i=0 and the set of the triangles containing the vertex v by { v i } n 1 i=0, v i = (v i v v (i+1) mod n ), 0 i n 1. (3.1) Figure 2 shows the notations used for vertices, edges, and triangles. 13

15 Fig. 3. A visual representation of the paraboloid fitting method. Then, simple trigonometry can show that n 1 i=0 α i = n 1 i=0 γ i. (3.6) The vertices and the edges are indexed as shown in Figure 2. Figure 4 shows specific notations used in the Gauss-Bonnet method. The Gauss-Bonnet [9, 45] theorem reduces, in the polygonal case, to A KdA = 2π which, according to Equation (3.6) equals, A KdA = 2π n 1 i=0 n 1 i=0 γ i, (3.7) α i, (3.8) where A is the accumulated areas of triangles v i (Equation (3.1)) around v. Assuming K is constant in the local neighborhood, Equation (3.8) can be rewritten as [24] K = 2π n 1 i=0 α i 1 3 A. (3.9) This approach for estimating K is used, for example, by [1, 11, 24, 33, 44]). In [11,24] a similar integral approach to the computation of the mean curvature 15

17 normal at a surface point v. A normal section curve r (s) associated with T at v is defined as the intersection between the surface and the plane through v that is spanned by T and N (see Figure 5). Let P 1 and P 2 be the principal directions at v associated with the principal curvatures κ 1 and κ 2, respectively. κ n (ϕ) denotes the normal curvature of the normal section curve, where ϕ is the angle between T and P 1. Using Euler s theorem (see Theorem 2.2), integral formulas of κ n (ϕ) and its square are derived [54]: 1 2π k n (ϕ)dϕ = H; 2π 0 1 2π k n (ϕ) 2 dϕ = 3 2π 0 2 H2 1 K. (3.11) 2 In order to estimate the integrals of Equation (3.11), one needs to estimate the normal curvature around v, in all possible tangent directions. Consider v being a mesh vertex and recall its normal Nv (Equation (3.3)). Here, the average of the normals of the faces adjacent to vertex v takes into account the relative areas of the different faces. v is now transformed along with its immediate neighboring vertices, {v i } n 1 i=0, to the origin such that N v coalesces with the z axes. Consider the intersection curve r = r(s) of the surface by a plane through v that is spanned by N v (the z axis in our canonical form) and edge e i = v v i. A Taylor series expansion of r(s) gives r(s) = r(0) + s r (0) + s2 2 r (0) +..., = r(0) + s T r + s2 2 κ n N r +..., (3.12) where T r and N r are the unit tangent and normal of r(s). Recall that v = r(0) and that v i = r(s). The arclength s could be approximated by the length of 17

20 as shown in Figure 2. The weights w i are selected to be proportional to the sum of the surface areas of the triangles incident to both vertices v and v i (two triangles if the surface is closed, and one triangle if both vertices belong to the boundary of S). By construction, the normal vector N v is an eigenvector of the matrix M v associated with the eigenvalue zero. Then, Mv is restricted to the tangent plane N v and, using a Householder transformation [18] and a Givens rotation [18], the remaining eigenvectors P 1 and P 2 of Mv (i.e., the principal directions of the surface at v) are computed. Finally, the principal curvatures are obtained from the two corresponding eigenvalues of Mv using Equation (3.18). 3.5 Modifications We suggest several modifications for the paraboloid fitting [20, 27, 28, 42, 44], Watanabe and Belyaev [54], and Taubin [49] methods. We now describe our proposed modifications. We employed the paraboloid fitting method [20, 27, 28, 42, 44] on the rings of immediate neighbors (see [12] for a free implementation). Moreover, we extended these rings to neighbors that are not immediate. We refer to the paraboloid fitting n method when rings from 1 up to n were involved in computations. We considered two modifications to the algorithm of Watanabe and Belyaev [54]. In the following two modified algorithms, we do not change the first step of the Watanabe and Belyaev method. We employ the tangent directions T i at 20

21 vertex v produced by Equation (3.20). Having two vertices (v and v i ), tangent direction T i and the normal in v, we compute the radius of the fitted circle and from that derive κ n (ϕ i ), the normal curvature in the specified direction T i. Watanabe A: Having the normal curvatures, we apply Equations (3.14) and (3.15). Watanabe B: From the set of the normal curvatures of each vertex v, {κ i n} n 1 i=0, we select the maximal (k 1 ) and the minimal (k 2 ) normal curvature values and apply the classic Equations of (2.3) and (2.4). We also considered two modifications of Taubin s algorithm [49]: Taubin A (Constant integration): In Equation (3.19), the weights w i are selected to be proportional to angles (v i, v, v i+1 ) instead of the surface areas. Taubin B (Smoothing with a trapezoidal rule): The directional curvature κ n ( T i ) in Equation (3.19) is selected as an average of values κ n ( T (i 1) mod n ) and κ n ( T i ). 4 Experimental Results We differentiate between two categories of data: synthetic and real range. While the interest for the synthetic data is generated from the fact that it is accurate and allows for ground truth to be produced at any point, the interest in range data is motivated by the fact that in most cases it is noisy, with direct influence on the accuracy and stability of the algorithms. Denote by K i and H i the values of Gaussian and mean curvatures computed 21

22 K H 2 cylinder radius = cone small radius = 24 big radius = 50 height = sphere radius = Table 1 plane width length 0 0 Dimensions of the cylinder, the cone, the sphere, and the plane in millimeters and their implicit analytic curvatures values used in comparisons. by one of the methods from the triangular mesh data in vertex v i, while ˆK i and Ĥi are the exact (analytically computed) values of the Gaussian and mean curvatures, at the same surface location v i = S(r i, t i ) on the corresponding surface. We considered the following error values: (1) Average of the absolute error value of the Gaussian curvature K 1 m m K i ˆK i ; i=1 (2) Average of the absolute error value of the square of the mean curvature H 2 1 m m Hi 2 Ĥ2 i. i=1 4.1 Comparison Using Synthetic Data We tested all the algorithms described in Section 3 on a set of synthetic models that represent the tessellations of four objects: a cylinder, a conus, a sphere, and a plane. Moreover, we tested all the algorithms described in Section 3 on a set of synthetic models that represent the tessellations of four NURBS surfaces: a surface of revolution generated by a non circular arc, the body and the spout 22

23 (1) (2) (3) (4) Fig. 6. The tesselations types of the synthetic counterparts of the real objects shown in Figure 17, at relative low resolutions. The captured interior points are grouped in square-like neighborhoods. The tesselation enriches these grouping with diagonal lines. (1) (2) (3) (4) Fig. 7. The NURBS surfaces that were used for curvature estimation tests. of the infamous Utah teapot model, and an ellipsoid (see Figure 7). 1 We built a library of triangular meshes that represent approximations (with 1 The synthetic models along with their dimensions and curvature values for each vertex (where is relevant) are also available in octavian/poly crvtrs/poly synthetic data. 23

24 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Fig. 8. The tessellations of the spout surface were produced for the following resolutions: (1) 128 triangles, (2) 288 triangles, (3) 512 triangles, (4) 1152 triangles, (5) 2048 triangles, and (6) 5000 triangles. different resolutions) of the synthetic models. For each synthetic surface, we have produced several polyhedral approximations with a varying number of triangles. The cylinder, the cone, the sphere, and the plane were created artificially and ray-traced as if they were scanned (see Figure 6). Consider the way in which the Cyberware range scanner captures 3D objects. This device registers the distances of 3D points to the sensors. The sensors are situated at fixed points in a vertical line, relative to the ground. The captured object is located at a platform that moves linearly in the front of the 24

25 sensors. The sensors are activated at constant intervals of times, therefore, range images are parameterizable 3D sets of points. The directions of parameterizations are two: the first is defined by the locations where the sensors are activated, while the second is defined by the density of the sensors on the vertical line they are located at. The vast majority of interior points are captured in square-like neighborhoods. In Figure 6, we show the square-like neighborhood simulation results together with diagonals added for triangulations building purposes. The dimensions and the analytic curvature values for the cylinder, the cone, the sphere, and the plane are specified in millimeters in Table 1. The tessellations for the NURBS surfaces was performed using samplings in the parameteric domain followed by evaluations of the 3D values on surfaces. The library files contain, for each NURBS surface and for each vertex v i, its 3D coordinates and analytically precomputed values of the Gaussian curvature ˆK i and the squared value of the mean curvature Ĥ2 i. The Gaussian and mean curvature values are computed from the original NURBS surfaces. The tessellations of each model were produced for several different resolutions: from about one hundred triangles to several thousand triangles for the finest resolution. The different tessellations of the spout surface are shown in Figure 8. These different resolutions helped us gain some insight into the convergence rates of the tested algorithms as the accuracy of the tessellation improves. In the vast majority of the previous results, only primitives such as cones and spheres were examined for the accuracy of these curvature approximation algorithms. The output of the tests of four different schemes on seven models 25

26 Sphere Absolute Error K [1x1-30][2x2-169][4x4-786][8x8-3336][16x ][32x ] Gauss-Bonnet Paraboloid_Fitting TaubinA TaubinB WatanabeA WatanabeB Sphere Absolute Error H Fig. 9. Average of the absolute error for the value of the Gaussian curvature for the tessellations of the sphere (see Figure 6 (3)). The Gauss-Bonnet scheme is the most accurate being closely followed by the paraboloid fitting method Gauss-Bonnet Paraboloid_Fitting TaubinA TaubinB [1x1-30] [2x2-169][4x4-786][8x8-3336][16x ][32x ] WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 10. Average of the absolute error for the value of the mean curvature for the tessellations of the sphere (see Figure 6 (3)). The paraboloid fitting method is slightly outperformed by Taubin and its variants, due to the fact that the normal curvature in Taubin s method is based on tangent circle approximations. 26

27 eror S. Rev. : K - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-128] [2x2-288] [4x4-512] [8x8-1152][16x ][32x ]resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB S. Rev. : H - absolute error Fig. 11. Average of the absolute error for the value of the Gaussian curvature for the tessellations of a surface of revolution (see Figure 7 (1)). The Gauss-Bonnet and the paraboloid fitting schemes provide the best accuracy, they having decreasing errors as the resolution increases. 1.00E E E+02eror Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A 1.00E-01[1x1-128][2x2-288][4x4-512][8x8-1152][16x ][32x ] resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 12. Average of the absolute error for the value of the mean curvature for the tessellations of a surface of revolution (see Figure 7 (1)). The paraboloid fitting scheme presents increasing accuracy as the resolution increases. It clearly outperforms the Gauss-Bonnet scheme although it is slightly outperformed by Taubin A and Watanabe, which do not have increasing accuracies. 27

28 1000 eror 100 Spout. : K - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par 10 TaubinB Fit. A 1[1x1-128][2x2-288][4x4-512][8x8-1152][16x ][32x ][64x ]resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Spout. : H - absolute error 1.00E E E E+03eror Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-128][2x2-288][4x4-512][8x8-1152][16x ][32x ][64x ] - resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 13. Average of the absolute error for the value of the Gaussian curvature for the tessellations of the Utah teapot s spout (see Figure 7 (3)). The Gauss-Bonnet scheme provides the best accuracy. Fig. 14. Average of the absolute error for the value of the mean curvature for the tessellations of the Utah teapot s spout (see Figure 7 (3)). The paraboloid fitting is outperformed by the Gauss-Bonnet scheme only. (see Figures 6 and 7) shows that while the best algorithm for the estimation of the Gaussian curvature is the Gauss-Bonnet scheme, the best method for the estimation of the mean curvature is the paraboloid fitting method. 28

29 eror Ellip : K - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-144] [2x2-400] [4x4-1024] [8x8-2304] [16x ] resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB eror Ellip : H - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-144] [2x2-400] [4x4-1024] [8x8-2304] [16x ] resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 15. Average of the absolute error for the value of the Gaussian curvature for the tessellations of an ellipsoid (see Figure 7 (4)). The Gauss-Bonnet scheme provides the best accuracy. Fig. 16. Average of the absolute error for the value of the mean curvature for the tessellations of an ellipsoid (see Figure 7 (4)). The paraboloid fitting and the Gauss-Bonnet scheme provide the best accuracy. Bearing in mind that each mesh of the objects shown in Figure 6 is obtained from an orthographic ray-tracing, we can attach a parametrization of two perpendicular axes to the mesh. Moreover, we create different resolutions of 29

30 meshes by decreasing the resolutions, that is we purge each second column and row of samplings. In all figures in this section, the horizontal axis is used to mark the resolutions of the tessellations of the analyzed surfaces, where the origin means the coarsest resolution. The different resolutions are labelled according to their number of triangles as well as with a relative resolution indicator of form n n. This indicator shows the relative resolution of the mesh in the two directions of the attached parametrization. Figures 9, and 10 show the results of the tests for the tessellations of the sphere (see Figure 6 (3)). Figures 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, show the results of the tests for the tessellations of the surface of revolution (see Figure 7 (1)), the spout of the Utah teapot (see Figures 7 (3) and 8) and the ellipsoid (see Figure 7 (4)). These graphs show a partial set of the examples of the results we got throughout our tests. The Gauss-Bonnet scheme shines when K is computed and the parabolic fitting scheme works better for H, as compared to the Gauss-Bonnet scheme as well as all other schemes. Hence, the optimal approximation scheme for triangular meshes should be based on a synergy of the two schemes. In the case of the sphere and the surface of revolution, (see Figures 6 (3) and 7) one can see that the accuracy in the mean curvature computation provided by the paraboloid fitting is slightly outperformed by Watanabe and Taubin s variants. However, on the free form surfaces, the paraboloid fitting is close to the Gauss-Bonnet scheme, in the case of ellipsoid being the best and in the case of the Utah spout being the second one. Another significant result that can be drawn from these graphs is that this synergetic scheme does not always converge as the fineness of the mesh is 30

31 improved, that is the higher the resolution of the mesh, the closer the values of the curvatures computed at the mesh points are to the exact (analytically computed) values. This convergence was not witnessed in all schemes, yet the parabolic fitting scheme for H always converged in the case of the free-form surfaces. In this context, the Gauss-Bonnet scheme also converges, except in the case of the surface of revolution when computing H. The authors feel that the convergence of the paraboloid fitting method relies on the approximation provided by the paraboloid that locally approximates each point of interest. This method is designed to work well on free-form surfaces. However, bearing in mind that the paraboloid is essentially not a sphere, we think that methods that locally approximate surfaces by spheres could have advantages on spherical surfaces. The authors consider the results shown in Figures 13 and 14 for the spout of the Utah teapot (see Figures 7 (3) and 8), which is a free-form surface, the most relevant. The experiments on the ellipsoid free-form surface (see Figures 15 and 16) strengthen this conclusion. 4.2 Using Real Range Data We tested all the algorithms described in Section 3 on triangular meshes that represent tessellations of a cylinder, a cone, a sphere, and a plane. These objects were scanned using a 3D Cyberware scanner [23]. The images of the tested objects are shown in Figure 17. The results were compared with the analytic values of the Gaussian and mean curvatures of the scanned geometric 31

32 (1) (2) (3) (4) Fig. 17. Real objects used in experiments. objects, see Table 1. 2 (In the case of the cone, only the Gaussian curvature was computed.) We built a library of triangular meshes that represent approximations (with different resolutions) of the four real objects that were scanned. For each surface, we produced several polyhedral approximations with a varying number of triangles. The library files contain the 3D coordinates of each vertex v i. The tessellations of each model were produced for several different resolutions: from about one hundred triangles to several thousand triangles for the finest resolution. The sizes of the objects being known from a-priori measurements, their intrinsic analytic values of Gaussian and mean curvatures are available 2 These models, which resulted from range image data, along with the curvature values are also available at octavian/poly crvtrs/poly range data. 32

33 eror Sphere : K - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. WatanabeA A [1x1-30][2x2-159][4x4-743][8x8-3131][16x ][32x ]resolution WatanabeB Fig. 18. Average of the absolute error for the value of the Gaussian curvature for the tessellations of the sphere, which is the ping-pong ball (see Figure 17 (3)). Although at high resolution, Watanabe A and B have higher accuracies, the Gauss-Bonnet and paraboloid fitting schemes present more accurate computations at lower resolution meshes. for error evaluation purposes. These four objects have the same dimensions as their synthetic counterparts (see Section 4.1). The same software that created the tessellations in the synthetic case (see Section 4.1) was used here, therefore the tessellations in the synthetic and real cases are similar (see Figure 6) Comparing Methods on Subsequent Refined Meshes We tested all the algorithms described in Section 3 on triangular meshes that represent refined tessellations of range data images representing a cylinder, a cone, a sphere, and a plane. We used the same way of representing the results as in Section 4.1. In Figures 18, 19, 20 and 21, we show the results for the sphere and the plane 33

34 eror Sphere : H - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-30] [2x2-159] [4x4-743][8x8-3131][16x ][32x ]resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 19. Average of the absolute error for the value of the mean curvature for the tessellations of the sphere, which is the ping-pong ball (see Figure 17 (3)). Although 1.00E E+01eror Plane : K - absolute error at high resolution, Watanabe A and B have higher accuracies, the paraboloid fitting scheme presents more accurate computations at lower resolution meshes. 1.00E E E E-01 Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-60] [2x2-337] [4x4-1565] [8x8-6560][16x ]resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 20. Average of the absolute error for the value of the Gaussian curvature for the tessellations of the plane (see Figure 17 (4)). in Figure 17 (3) and (4). At high resolutions, high errors in computing the Gaussian and mean curvatures were detected, due to the fact that the relative distances among the points are comparable to the scanning errors. Figure 22 34

35 1.00E E E E E E E-01 eror Plane : H - absolute error Gauss-Bonnet Par TaubinB Fit. A [1x1-60] [2x2-337] [4x4-1565] [8x8-6560][16x ]resolution WatanabeA WatanabeB Fig. 21. Average of the absolute error for the value of the mean curvature for the tessellations of the plane (see Figure 17 (4)). illustrates this problem. Note that when filtering is used, this problem is alleviated (see Section 4.2.3). Two different tesselated surfaces of a scanned ping-pong ball (the sphere in Figure 17 (3)) are shown in Figure 22. When the scanning resolution is low, the relative distances among the points are higher than the scanning errors and the graphs (Figures 18 and 19) are consistent with the observation presented in Section 4.1. As can be seen, at high resolutions, the Watanabe A and B methods provide the best results, although, at lower resolutions, the Gauss-Bonnet and the paraboloid fitting methods are preferable. We computed the corresponding graphs for the cylinder and the cone, and obtained similar results. A common feature of all the graphs for the cylinder, the cone, the sphere, and the plane is that at very high level of noise, the Watanabe s A and B method present improved accuracies. However, at low level resolutions of the meshes, 35

36 (1) (2) Fig. 22. The surface of the ping-pong ball as it was scanned: triangles (1) and the most coarse approximation: 159 triangles (2) (the sphere in Figure 17 (3)). all the methods give very small errors in curvature accuracy computation. As a common characteristic of all the graphs in this section and their counterparts in Section 4.1, we observe that the errors detected at higher resolutions of the meshes are higher than the ones computed at lower resolutions. All the graphs, except Gauss-Bonnet and paraboloid fitting in the free-form cases, have an ascending tendency Comparing Paraboloid Fitting Multi-Ring Methods Contemporary 3D acquisition devices are able to provide very dense clouds of points. However, the accuracy of these 3D points is not satisfactory. One way to cope with the inaccuracy is to use extended regions of neighborhoods [19, 21]. The authors believe that the best accuracy in curvature computation can be achieved when one employs multi-ring methods. We ran the paraboloid 36

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